Accented characters

Regarding Arsenault, etc: Do we want to include accented characters in the page title? Can the search routine treat them as unaccented for its purposes (as Google does)? --Mike (mksmith) 15:12, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

Verbatim records [28 July 2009]

Various issues [20 June 2011]

Regarding this one -- Source:U.S. Congress. American State Papers, Class VIII: Public Lands

It was changed to "Source:United States. American State Papers, Class VIII: Public Lands" -- but that's partially incorrect. Congress is the authoring agency. For conformity to style, yes, "U.S." should undoubtedly be spelled out. But omitting "Congress" implies authorship by the Executive Branch, or by the U.S. government in general, which is not the case.

"Source:United States. U.S. National Archives" is redundant. Either "United States" or "U.S.," but not both.

Well, this actually isn't a source, so it should just be deleted, but as a general matter, you're right -- it should be United States, California. Deaths 1940-2000; not United States, California. California Deaths, 1940-2000, for instance (although if doing this makes hash of the record name, you don't have to omit it.)--Amelia 00:06, 30 July 2009 (EDT)

"Source:United States, Iowa, Dallas. Marriages, 1880-1926" -- Why would you include dates? Marriages were and are being performed in Dallas County after 1926. You can walk into the courthouse and look them up. This Source page name refers to the actual documents, not somebody's published collection. This would also apply to the town records in Windsor, CT (which I'm familiar with).

In almost any record set I've ever seen, it's only a set of dates. I left other examples without dates (but deleted the ones that didn't offer any new information), but this is an actual record set that's in the FHL catalo, and I thought it ought to be one of the examples. Even though we use the geographic format, you still have to respect the record set name. There are many versions of same county marriage records, and Windsor CT vital records for that matter -- that's why the Windsor title is the way it is, and not just "Vital Records."--Amelia 00:06, 30 July 2009 (EDT)

I only deleted examples that didn't seem to add anything to what was there. If there was a difference I missed, please explain further. But I also think we should be cautious about offering a zillion examples and implying that this is really complicated.--Amelia 00:06, 30 July 2009 (EDT)

I would call US National Archives a repository, not a source. The various records they hold are sources. I am finding a lot of repositories in the source namespace. I suggest they be moved.

Putting a date range on a collective source for public records is problematic. The particular book and page, etc would be part of the citation. The "Source" is the entire record set. A published book might be limited in range, but would have a separate source page.